How I Got to Be Whoever It Is I Am (11 page)

One director who probably wouldn’t agree with that last statement is Joel Schumacher, who directed
The Incredible Shrinking Woman
, which I believe was his first picture. It was a movie filled with special effects, which by definition meant there would
be more than your average mind-numbing hours of waiting around—like, eight. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t the only one who
felt some thought could be given to how many hours the actors were waiting. I not only wasn’t the only one, but one actress
actually felt it was being done deliberately to drive her crazy!

I went to Joel to ask if he could give some consideration to the actors’ call times. He looked at me as though I was nuts.
He said, “You expect me to think about
that
!?” It was clear the special effects were more than enough of a challenge for him. I said, “I
do
expect you to think about that.” He told me that I was being paid more than Lily Tomlin, who played the Shrinking Woman.
I said, “Really? Who’s her agent?” Then I said, “Under your logic the person being paid the most should wait the longest.”
He said, “You’re like a Jewish prince.” Joel is Jewish, so I didn’t take it as an anti-Semitic remark, but I didn’t like it.
Joel saw the look in my eye that surfaces from time to time and quickly added about himself, “And I’m white trash.”

Back to
The Graduate
. Turn it down? I may be a lot of things, but nuts really isn’t one of them. At the time, in spite of working in television,
I owed $800 to the Actors Federal Credit Union. Believe me, I didn’t turn down
The Graduate
. To this day, I don’t think they realize they made it impossible for me to succeed. I say that not to point a finger but
for directors in the future who may not realize what actors need to be at their best.

For example, when I’m involved in casting plays I write, instead of having the director, producer, casting director, and myself
sit behind a long table, I give the person auditioning a table to sit behind as well, instead of just a straight-back chair.
Sometimes I give them my table.

There’s a reason plays are in rehearsal for four weeks and then in previews before critics come. Movie scripts are often given
to actors months ahead of time. As I’ve said, the only place actors are asked to memorize pages and pages of dialogue in a
short period is on soap operas. I’ve done two soap operas and found it impossible to be anywhere near the level I can reach
with the time given in movies and onstage. There are wonderful soap opera actors, but you don’t ever hear their names mentioned
among our great actors. When they had opportunities with movies or theater they could really fulfill their potential.

I once asked a veteran soap opera actress if she enjoyed the work. She said, “The only thing I enjoy is the last line.”

I’ve always tried to focus on what I
have
and not on what I don’t have, because in the overall scheme of things, if I consider what I have been given it would be ridiculous
for me to ever feel sorry for myself, and I never have.

I’ve known Mike Nichols for forty years, but since
The Graduate
test I’ve never had a bumpy moment with him. Whenever I see him, I can’t help but be aware I’m looking at someone very special—so
original in his wit and so smart—probably in a class of his own, at least in show business. The two of us once had lunch,
and the subject of
The Graduate
never came up. Oddly, I don’t even remember thinking about it when I was with him.

In 1997, thirty years after our awkward, failed encounter on
The Graduate
, Mike called to compliment me on something he’d seen on my cable show—a classy move. He’s a highly unusual dude. If our country
ever becomes a monarchy, I could easily see him as king.

A friend of mine recently called my attention to
Pictures at the Revolution
by Marc Harris (Penguin, 2008) in which
The Graduate
is discussed by Mike Nichols and Buck Henry:

Charles Grodin, a thirty-one-year-old TV and theater performer with a growing list of credits, impressed them both with a
very sharp reading. “Grodin got very close,” says Nichols. “His reading was hilarious, he’s brilliantly talented, and he understood
the jokes. But he didn’t look like Benjamin to me.”

“Chuck Grodin gave the best reading,” says Henry. “And maybe one of the best readings I’ve ever heard in my career, so funny
and interesting. He thinks we offered him the part—I don’t think we did. I don’t remember his screen test, whereas Dustin’s
was really memorable.”

Dustin Hoffman is a brilliant actor. We were in Lee Strasberg’s class together. I have no doubt he gave a memorable screen
test. I also have no doubt he had the script well ahead of the night before he did the test.

Sometime in the early sixties, years before all of this, I saw Dustin standing on a street corner near where I lived. He said
he was looking for me, because he was directing something in the basement of a church and he wanted me to be in it. There
would be no pay, of course. I told him I couldn’t, because I had to work (driving a cab at that time). As I walked away, I
looked back at him still standing on the corner. I remember thinking to myself,
God, I wonder what’s going to happen to him?
Obviously, he’s worked so hard and deeply deserves everything that’s happened to him. I think he’s a magnificent actor.

Mike Nichols wrote me a note after
The Graduate
screen test saying he’d like me to do
Catch-22
with him. That helped, but what really kept
The Graduate
situation from getting to me was a telegram I received soon after the test from Renée Taylor, saying she wanted to meet with
me. My friend now of over fifty years, Gene Wilder, got Renée and me together. Through Renée I met her friend Elaine May,
which led me to doing
The Heartbreak Kid
, which really launched my movie career.

R
ight around this time in the late sixties, I was living in an apartment in New York. One day I answered the phone, and there
was a French girl on the line. It was a wrong number, but we began to chat. She told me she was a young actress recently arrived
from Paris to screen test for the role of a sexy young woman in a movie. She was charming and somewhat flirtatious. After
a while, I asked for her number. I was, of course, single. She wouldn’t give it to me but took mine and said she’d call again.

About a week later she did, and again we had a flirtatious conversation, and again she wouldn’t give me her number but said
she’d call again. These weekly calls went on for about a month, until she finally gave me her number. That would prove to
be an unconsciously self-destructive move on her part. She said she’d still prefer to call me. I didn’t ask why, but I chose
to respect her wishes and didn’t call her.

After about a half-dozen phone calls, she started to ask me about my dating life. I told her I was seeing a girl, and she
began to ask about her. After the second call, when she continued to ask about my new girlfriend, I began to feel suspicious.
I wasn’t sure what I was suspicious about, just suspicious.

I called my girlfriend and asked her if she had any girlfriends from France. She said she didn’t. I then gave her the French
girl’s number and asked her to look through her phone book to see if that number belonged to anyone she knew. It didn’t.

As weeks went by, the French girl continued to call and continued to want to know what the latest was with the girl I was
seeing. So I asked my girlfriend to again carefully go through her phone book to see if the girl’s number corresponded to
any in her book. This time she found it. It didn’t belong to a French girl but to a chubby friend of hers who was very good
at doing accents.

I asked my friend to put together a small group of people, including the friend who did accents so well, and we’d all go to
Central Park and have a picnic. The next Sunday about five of us sat on the side of a hill in Central Park and had our picnic.
The chubby girl who was good at accents sat a few feet from me.

The next day the “French girl” called me again to ask me what I had done over the weekend. I told her I’d gone to the park
with some friends and had a picnic. She asked me if it was fun. I said, “Well, you were there, what did you think?” There
was a long, uncomfortable silence, and she finally said goodbye, without the French accent.

A couple of years went by, of course without any calls from the “French girl.” My girlfriend and I had gone our separate ways.
She had moved to California. One day the phone rang, and it was the “French girl” using her own voice. She asked me if I had
heard from my former girlfriend. I said I hadn’t. She then said she had driven off a cliff in California and was dead.

Given my past experience with this girl, I was dubious. Incredibly, she wanted to chat some more about this and that, but
I quickly got off the phone and called my former girlfriend’s brother. He confirmed she had driven off a cliff and felt it
was an accident. But, in fact, she had died. Sheila was in her twenties.

I
n 1969, I directed a Simon and Garfunkel special for CBS. Because of Paul and Art’s prominence, they were given a prime-time
slot on Sunday night. My television directing credits at the time were my two firings from
Candid Camera
.

Actually, Paul and Art didn’t ask me to direct the special. They asked me to go out and meet with the leading documentarians
in the field, which I did. They were all impressive but were talking about something other than what we had in mind. Eventually,
I said, “I think I should direct it.” Paul and Art said, “Fine.”

I’m not sure what the network was expecting—most likely a musical special with maybe one or two guest stars—but Paul and Art
were more than open to my idea that we make a documentary special intercutting footage of what was going on in America and
in Vietnam that provoked Paul to write some of his songs.

To be upfront with everyone, I sent the network an outline of exactly what the show would be: It would include the Poor People’s
march on Washington; footage of our three slain leaders, President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr.; and
Robert Kennedy with the migrant workers’ leader, César Chávez.

Paul and I traveled to Delano, California, to meet with Mr. Chávez, and our crew followed Paul and Art around the country,
filming them in concert. Paul and I attended a union meeting that César Chávez chaired. The discussion was whether they should
have a mariachi band or food—they couldn’t afford both. Paul arranged it so they could. I have a letter from Mr. Chávez thanking
Paul and me for giving him so much of our time. He was an inspiration to me, a role model for helping others in need.

We made the show using the facilities of Robert Drew Associates. Robert Drew was considered by many to be the father of video
vérité, meaning documentaries. He had two credits on the special, executive producer and executive in charge of production.
He was a self-described Rockefeller Republican—whatever that meant. He had a portrait of Nelson Rockefeller on the wall behind
his desk.

Nelson Rockefeller gave us the Rockefeller Drug Laws, which were the harshest in the nation and responsible for ruining thousands
of people’s lives. More about that later.

Governor Rockefeller, that paragon of virtue, died from having a heart attack while having sex with his mistress.

Anyhow, while I was working on our special, Robert Drew was off in an editing room of his own putting together an entirely
different special from our footage: the making of a song or something.

When he saw my “rough assemblage,” he called Paul and Art and me into his office and pronounced it “not airworthy.” He then
said, “The only way this show can be saved is if Chuck removes himself from control and turns the reins over to me.” Paul
and Art looked at me for my response—a thirty-four-year-old newcomer challenged by the father of documentaries.

I said, “Bob, you’re off in another room making a special none of us have any interest in. I suggest
you
leave the premises and let me complete what I’m doing.”

I worked through the night with the editors and took the rough assemblage to its next step: a rough cut. Bob looked at it
and said, “That’s the best rough cut I’ve ever seen.”

When the special was completed, we waited for the reaction. There was a very loud sound of silence, and then urgent meetings
were called.

I was angrily confronted by a representative of the ad agency for the sponsor, AT&T. He said to me, “You’re using our money
to sell your ideology!” I asked him what he saw as my ideology, and he snapped, “The humanistic approach.” I was honestly
baffled. I said, “You mean there are people against the humanistic approach?” He said, “You’re goddammed right there are!”

What I was too naïve to understand was that in the sixties as well as today, unfortunately, people will almost always put
their economic interests over any concern for equal rights, which this special clearly was calling for, and AT&T felt it might
offend some of their Southern affiliates. Also, not everyone was necessarily against the war in Vietnam in 1969. As a result,
AT&T removed their name from the special after having paid for it.

Right around that time, I was having dinner with some friends at the Russian Tea Room in New York. Sitting nearby was the
fellow from the ad agency, and we all heard him say, “Simon and Garfunkel are under the spell of this Svengali figure, Charles
Grodin.” One of my friends immediately spoke up to let him know I was sitting right there, and any further talk of me or Svengali,
for that matter, stopped. The man from the ad agency obviously didn’t know Paul Simon or Art Garfunkel, because I’ve never
met anyone with stronger opinions than Paul or Art. The idea that they would be under anyone’s spell, mine or even Svengali’s,
is ludicrous.

I do remember that before AT&T removed their name, the fella from the ad agency had asked for certain changes. One I particularly
recall: they were concerned with Coretta Scott King saying, “Poverty is a child without an education.” They wanted me to lower
the sound on her speaking. I asked to what level? The answer was, “Make it inaudible.” (I recently learned that my phone service
is with AT&T. I hope they don’t read this and make it impossible for me to get a dial tone.)